


All of Us Immortal

by JeanLuciferGohard



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Character Study, Gen, [john darnielle voice] this fic continues my general theme of transcendence through physical torture, the awful minutiae of living, the inherent horror of being a body, very large very sad man does decline chest presses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-23 01:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23436559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanLuciferGohard/pseuds/JeanLuciferGohard
Summary: A cavalier of the Eighth House does not fast; an adept cannot drink from an empty cup. A cavalier is, necessarily, a creature of the body, and slave to its needs.This is why no cavalier has ever been sainted.Or:The prayers of the Eighth House run on a whole lot of elbow grease.Colum Asht character study.
Relationships: Colum Asht & Silas Octakiseron
Comments: 6
Kudos: 54





	All of Us Immortal

> “Plato was right. We’re all of us immortal. We couldn’t die if we wanted to.”
> 
> - _Chuck Palahniuk, Diary_
> 
> “Shore up the crucifixes/Above the archways and the doors”
> 
> - _The Mountain Goats, Magpie_

There’s nothing that helps with the pain in his knees; it’s what God wants out of kneeling, apparently. He would’ve made knees differently, otherwise. It isn’t a bright enough hurt to be clarifying, just a low, aching throb that nests in the hollow of his joints, unmoved by any remedy you could try.

Colum Asht no longer tries. He just kneels.

Best to be methodical about things like this; start at one corner, work to the center. Work back out. The wood polish smells of citrus, and the room of dust. He braces on one palm, working his rag into the cracks between the planks, hunched like something that hasn’t branched out onto land yet, tetrapodal and pale, still gleaming with salt water. He sinks into his heels, wipes the sweat from the back of his neck. Kneels again.

To clear the dust from one arm’s circle of floor takes five  _ Let the King Undyings _ , or three  _ Wade in the Waters _ , or one list of the injection regimen prescribed to the cavalier primary of the Eighth house and one  _ O, Glass which sees _ .

He works his way across the floors, and prays, but mostly to pass the time.

Could do it faster, he reckons, scrutinizing a deep, knotted gouge, blistered and cracked, flaked with what might be blood, but it wouldn’t be a thorough job. It’s the details that matter.

The floor smells of citrus, and the rag of blood.

Later, Silas kneels upon the empty, gleaming floors, radiant, deep in prayer.

* * *

It is the Ottavian custom that a necromancer fasts until evening on Holy days, which are fewer in number than most people imagine, but more than seems practical, in Colum’s estimation. The Lord Undying conquered the body, which is the dwelling place of death, and it’s all well and good that His servants attempt the same, but.

But Silas, as Master Templar, the Lord's Clear Sight and Reflected Truth, doesn’t have to keep to it. 

He does anyway. 

Silas is exceptionally skilled at the denial of the flesh. Silas seems, at times, more mirror than man, and that is why  _ he _ is the beloved of God, and why Colum only appears at his elbow when the voice of the Lord’s truth begins to rasp, cracking mid-prayer.

Used to be that Colum would get there before, would keep water always to hand, and always ready, but that made it too easy, and defeated to the  _ point _ of a fast, apparently, and so now Colum waits until his uncle’s slender throat spits out the same kind of gravel that comes out of his own, and only then does he set down water, painfully cold, in a low, ceramic cup that makes just enough of a  _ click _ that Silas will notice it. 

Old arguments.

It took some time to find the right kind of porcelain to make the sound, longer to practice the motion of setting it down right; loud  _ enough _ to make it not Silas’s fault for noticing, nor it his fault for taking it, but soft enough to not be  _ obvious _ . He sips, primly.

It is the Ottavian custom that a necromancer fasts until evening, after which, Colum knows, Silas is going to expect to get done all of the things he neglected to get done earlier, and will, as such, be working on them late into the night. It’s easier to weigh the tea out now, to spare them both the ordeal of measuring later, when the hour and the grit in his eyes throws off Colum’s count. He heaps spoonfuls of the acerbically black tea Silas prefers into twists of fine, thin paper, always the same amount, pinching out the odd speck that doesn’t meet with his satisfaction.

A cavalier of the Eighth House does not fast; an adept cannot drink from an empty cup. A cavalier is, necessarily, a creature of the body, and slave to its needs.This is why no cavalier has ever been sainted.

Tea measured, Colum picks over their respective laundry, before the stains have a chance to set.

* * *

The body is where death lives. You can’t get out of it, not if you’re a cavalier, because a cavalier is a sword, and a sword must be wielded, and half the time, it’s not even  _ your _ body, which is the worst part. 

At least on the Third, Colum thinks, you’re yourself when they eat you.

Saw that, once, when Silas was still young enough to like the idea of  _ his _ cavalier being the best. When he still wanted to prove it. They entered a tournament, on Ida, and the Third Cav strutted around the ring like an exquisitely beautiful rooster, lunging beautifully and thrusting beautifully with his dagger, and gagging, beautifully, on his own blood in the dirt after Colum side-stepped his last blow, and brought his greatsword down on the lovely arch of Tern’s well-bred spine. 

And they ate him, after he lost; the Princesses of Ida drew him up and cooed in his ear, and bit down on his shoulder in the shadow of a colonnade.

Silas doesn’t need to prove anything anymore, is the problem. He just expects. He just knows.

Colum drags his body from his cot in the grey-yellow bruise of the not-yet-dawn, picking through his needles and his hand-weights as softly as he knows how.

Daily injections. Daily stretches.

His shoulder is playing up, and so are his knees. He grinds the heel of his palm into his clavicle until he can remember that the pain doesn’t matter, hissing quietly through his teeth. His tailbone aches. It’s what God wants out of sitting, the pain, or He would’ve made spines differently. Asked for a new one, once, but the Brother-Geneticists didn’t take it seriously. 

His head  _ thunks _ against the bare floor. Colum keeps his feet planted flat, hips pushed up, pressing the weights down to his chest, and up, again, and again, and again. He is silent, moving from set to set so quickly his chest heaves, even with size they made his lungs, but the panting doesn’t make a sound. The  _ whoosh _ of his greatsword, after an hour of weights becomes an hour of sword-forms, is louder.

It’s an hour of prayers, next, the Master needs must lead them, and then Silas will need to eat. Will need to be reminded to do so, and Colum will have to chase the Ninth Cav away from the tables again, if she’s sitting too close.

It hurts longer than it should, as he tidies the weights away. Colum grits his jaw against it, scrubbing his face against his shirt. Death lives in the body.

And in the meantime, he has work to do.

**Author's Note:**

> *adjusts my No 1 Column Asht stan hat*


End file.
